FdeC 130002 KOOKS

KOOKLAND

Here is where everyone tries.

To present the best of themselves.

Marked out as the space of childhood.

But only for the sake of ‘an argument’.

It could shift times and locations.

The thing is it never leaves us.

Mysuburbs is your Myspace.

Your Facebook.

What is clear is that there is an effort here.

Where everyone tries.

To make a form out of the formlessness.

What do I remember?

Your box brownie squint.

Maybe .

Dead grass ovals.

Pale blue skies blowing loco antipodean.

At noon.

Sure.

That.

The sweaty distance.

From my place to yours.

Eleve

nminutesflat

-tack.

Eighth gear on the Indy 500.

There never was a time

we weren’t crossing the Sahara.

What I want to say is there was no

blending-in. We saw the movie together.

Cinders. Waiting for getting-dark to do running

training around the oval.

Enough light to see.

Not enough to be seen.

I just never wanted to be judged

for my half-efforts

To be seen to be pushing

Failing.

I loved the training.

Hated the competition.

My position not matching my

imagination.

Hey you don’t know.

How when we weren’t hanging out.

I’d sp

end all day watch

ing televisi

on.

Pouring over s

kate mags.

Every sin

gle dude h

ad wild sk

inny arms.

I had sk

inny arms t

oo.

I was m

apping my body onto th

eirs’.

I’d ta

ke my stu

ntwood to

the n

etball

courts and tr

y to ollie

.

Never more

than half

an in

ch of air.

Could spin a 360 u

p to a 540 u

p to a 720

Maybe ten m

eters sta

r walking.

As I faux hot-dogged I was The Tonies

Alva, Hawk.

Goofy Salba, too.

Duane, Gator.

Mr. Lance Mountain.

Shadowing.

I was trying to play guitar.

Had dinner with the most famous guitar guy in town.

When I was done.

With my Greensleeves-via-Chet ditty.

Instead of commenting on my talent.

The most famous guitar guy in town

Told a story.

About his trip to America.

And lessons with a guitar hero. (name withheld).

guitar hero (name withheld) said he tries to push his pupils

out of their safety zone. the aim is to transcend ‘base-technique’.

‘base technique’ was what those long hairs brought with them

to guitar shops. they’d plug in the fender copy and scream

down the fretboard. ending with a fatuous flick of the whammy

bar. that’s about all they can play of course.

still, it impresses everyone there. Guitar hero’s (name withheld) deal, though, was that it wasn’t

enough. That such technique, or lack thereof, is a result of fear of being

seen to be the loser you really are, either just below the surface

or deep inside. to be any good at all, you have to brave enough to make a

thorough idiot of yourself.

Revelation: Everything I ever did was “base technique”!

Facing myself was the last thing I ever wanted to do. All the real action was happening in my mind.

Cheesy. You’ll laugh at this.

I really do blame it on the suburb

we grew up in.

With everything so much.

So empty.

So much in the open.

Having a bunch of internal.

Tall tales going on.

Was the only way to get any privacy.

To risk something by doing it publically

Would mess with the dreaming. To make a concerted, concentrated effort.

Would mess with the dreaming. T o b e s e l f - c r i t i c a l .

Would mess with the dreaming.

H o n e s t y .

Would mess with the dreaming

Now you know, as well as I do.

Every piece of sub-cultural ephemera.

Is about the heroism of authenticity.

Real skaters doing gnarly tricks.

Proper goth girls with perfect make-up.

Indie boys with the entire Sarah back-catalogue

Fixed In their brains and their one-stars.

Always shabby.

All of it.

Flawless, gapless and, somehow.

Deeply malevolent.

It’s about weeding you and me out.

Now you know, as well as I do.

Every piece of sub-cultural ephemera.

Is about the heroism of authenticity.

Real skaters doing gnarly tricks.

Proper goth girls with perfect make-up.

Indie boys with the entire Sarah back-catalogue

Fixed In their brains and their one-stars.

Always shabby.

All of it.

Flawless, gapless and, somehow.

Deeply malevolent.

It’s about weeding you and me out.

I did some reading last week. I learned that we had the ghosts of the 1950s.Breathing down our necks. Coltrane and Parker and Kerouac lurking.In the imaginative structures that defined our suburban lives. So present they’re chilling.With the big ramp guys and big wave surfers. Calling our bluff. Laughing at our sedans. Our fear of committing to a move. To any feat that would wake us up.Make us realise we were kooks. No matter what we ever did.

This is a kook thing. Has its own layers.Of creativity no one’s done much thinking.

About the intensity of the gap between.

The kook.And the counter cultural.Rebel is vital and powerful.

A pathwork of failures.Dense and tragic. Awesomely painful and intimate

Soothing, somnolent. No one did much looking. Because no one could bear to look.

Instead of finding the beauty.

The richly ethical nuances of the uni girl.

Who can’t get her indie down.

The surfer scared of left-hander reef-breaks.

We call kook on them.

In the name of what our grandparents

believed.

A way of letting the past defeat us.

By making our defeat defeat.

By calling it defeat.

Kook.

Because no one could bear to look.

For where the beauty is.

The embodiment of the failure.

A fresh understanding.

Because untested.

Too soft to be tried.

TOO NEW FOR NEW. RAD.A NEW MANEUVER. SO NEW.

THE KOOK IS THE ONLY RADICAL GESTURE THERE IS.No one has co-opted this yet. No one has named it and sold it back to us.

Even though indie thought it was doing so. It got solid too soon.

Is it a matter of days?Before the marketers catch on? That vulnerability is not a stand.But an anti-stand. A diffidence.

Living into mythology. Sustained by pixies in board shorts. Playing sax.

Curving dreads.

Why say that? Because honesty starts here, maybe.

Where all we want is for you. To feel sorry for us. For the hard-arses lighten up.

We live in a new place.Though we could change location.And still be shadowing.

Why say that? Because honesty starts here, maybe.

Where all we want is for you. To feel sorry for us. For the hard-arses lighten up.

We live in a new place.Though we could change location.And still be shadowing.

Why say that? Because honesty starts here, maybe.

Where all we want is for you. To feel sorry for us. For the hard-arses lighten up.

We live in a new place.Though we could change location.And still be shadowing.

Starry Night . Vincent Van Gogh/ Kim Boa

The World vs Cook . Matthew Hunt/Acquittal Report 2004

Mari , Suzuka. 2000 Alin Huma

Michelle. 2001 Alin Huma

Girl with Cello, Yokohama. 2000 Alin Huma

Wall Instalation detail, Tokyo 2010

Drawings of minor Japanese Subcultural heroes ( after Purple magazine) . Acquittal Report 2004

Self-portraits. Pete Toms

Garden Gnome . Anonymous

Doorman . Naoki Matsuyama

Garden Gnome . Anonymous

Kooks presented works and reproductions of works by:

Naoki Matsuyama, Pete Toms, Yoshiko Iwanaga, Alin Huma, Vincent Van Gogh/Kim Boa, Acquittal Report, Junichi Takehara

book: kook poet manifesto: Bob Charles, back-ground photos: Alin Huma and Yoshiko Iwanaga

©FdeC books Tokyo 2011